


you’re still following me (to the depths of the earth)

by FreakCityPrincess



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Because this ship is seriously underrated, Competition, F/M, Heavy Angst, Opal Deception spoilers, Scathing Sarcasm, Vinyaya is a badass, Young Love, aka a younger Commander Root, because that’s the way Root rolls you can’t convince me otherwise, character backstory, or furious denial if we’re being honest, past experiences
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-08-06 19:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16394078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreakCityPrincess/pseuds/FreakCityPrincess
Summary: Julius Root was once young, impulsive, reckless and stupid.Well, maybe not stupid. Root liked to think that at fifty years old, fresh out of the Academy, he was a smarter rookie than most, and his calm under fire and quick-thinking ability helped him up the ladder of rank.Julius Root was once young, promising and at the top of his class. Then the Academy’s only female elf, the headstrong and doubly promising Raine Vinyáya, broke a flight speed record.





	1. Situation Rep

**Author's Note:**

> Um, hi. I’m back! Yay! 
> 
> Anyway, I’m excited to pitch this brand new fic to you guys- we know we all deserve more Root, so why not give Haven’s most temperamental Commander a tragic character backstory so we can feel even more sad :)
> 
> This story is centred around Commander Root and his past experiences- he wasn’t always LEP Commander, and he had to climb his way to the top. Wouldn’t have been an easy life, either. And it’s also about Vinyáya, whom I believe really deserves more appreciation. Why don’t we talk about Vinyáya more, the woman who made the ranks before Holly Short? 
> 
>  
> 
> **Warning: Heavy angst, potential spoilers for The Opal Deception, gratuitous swearing but in Gnommish. I do not own Artemis Fowl.**
> 
>  
> 
> Enjoy!

Haven City, sanctuary for the People like the name suggested. Carved out of impenetrable rock and technology that was decades ahead of anything available on the surface, it spoke volumes about the adaptability of a race forced into self-sufficiency, and secrecy. Here, the ultra-modern could blend with the super-futuristic as well as the rustic past and not look an inch out of place; everything was perfect, geometrically slotted, and everyone had their role to play.  
  
Everyone, that is, except the goblin gangs who staged fiery protests in the late hours of night, setting fire to the symmetrical sidewalks and screaming themselves hoarse and demanding that the police set free their brothers caged in Howler’s Peak.  
  
Root cursed explicitly and without abandon as he pushed his way through a crowd of nervous onlookers. He cursed them, too, for leaving their buildings when the streets were literally on fire, but he kept those sentiments to himself. He was not in uniform; he didn’t have any uniform as such that would entitle him to order them around- and he didn’t have the years on him that would command respect regardless. No, he should be staying sensibly out of the way until the LEP responded, but he found he really couldn’t do that when historical monuments were being burned down and the LEP was setting a record in delay time.

“Oy! Out of the way, young ‘un!” 

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Excuse me, sorry, sir- _D’Arvitting mutts_ \- excuse me, coming through.”  

He managed to push his way to the forefront, felt the shape of his blaster tucked under his shirt. The full extent of the damage the goblins were wrecking became apparent now- Haven’s central statue of Ta’Fei was engulfed in orange flames that lapped at the artificial sky, and fireproof goblins dangled recklessly from its arms. They screeched for their rights and justice while hurling fireballs at the city around them, and sooner or later, this stupid crowd would be hit, too.

He could not pull out his blaster. Firstly, because he was in civilian clothing, and civilians weren’t allowed to carry guns, and Academy students weren’t supposed to take their weapons out of the Academy’s gates in the first place. Secondly, producing a gun in this already-on-edge throng would light the final fuse for panic, and thirdly, it wouldn’t help deal with the goblins anyway. Nevertless, his fingers twitched around the shape of the blaster. It was increasingly becoming a good feeling, feeling closer to his someday-career because of it.

“ _You there!_ ”

Root looked around in surprise for the loud, hoarse voice. He was startled to see one of the gang leaders staring right at him. 

Shite, had the blaster been spotted? Had he just given himself away to a dumb goblin of all things?

“Yes, elf, I’m talking to you!”

The leader had blue eyeballs and dark black irises- tattooed, cheap ink by the horrifying look of it- and a prickly orange hide. He wasn’t much taller than Root himself, but his back was on fire and his nails were sharpened to razors, not forgetting the extra help he had at his disposal. A multitude of scalene heads and tattooed eyeballs had turned Root’s way. The eyes of the idiot crowd were also fixed on him. 

He slowly slipped his hand away from his blaster, slackening his posture so he didn’t look like a threat. He didn’t know for sure that they’d seen.

 “Me?” Root feigned innocent surprise, like the forty-something elf he was supposed to be.

 “You look like law enforcement!”

 _What?_ Root frowned. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“Yes, you do,” the gang leader was now steadily approaching him, brandishing a fireball that grew dangerously bigger with every passing second. “You _are_. I’ve seen you. Seen you in those parts, with those leppers.”  

It momentarily startled him that a goblin could possess the memory capacity to remember one random face out of many, but Root chose to react without giving his thoughts away. If he came off as clueless enough, the goblin would think he was mistaken and go back to his rampage. Inclined as he felt towards putting a stop to this madness here and _now_ , he was clearly outnumbered, and if the situation transpired into a bigger mess because of his intervention his career would be over long before it could start.

“I’m just a normal commuter. I walk by Police Plaza every day.” 

“Not _those_ parts!” The goblin hissed, his reptilian tongue flicking all the way out, briefly threatening to strike Root in the face. “The lepper Academy! Those tropics that you pay for with the blood of my brothers!”

Root exhausted his reserve of patience, and huffed. “Would you care to explain? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Three things happened very fast. The lead goblin snarled something foul and hurled his fireball into the air, over the heads of the crowds. His backup started setting more of their surroundings on fire, making the crowd scream and erupt into a tightly-packed mass of panic, and somewhere in the distance, he heard the sirens of an LEP response team.

Root had very little time to act. There was a horde of civilians behind him and any moment now they could get charred in this fire. He tackled the lead goblin, blaster drawn, and whirled them both to the center of the square where everyone could see. It was enough to distract the others from their destructive frenzy.

“Keep that up,” Root shouted, “And your leader will get it. Back away now. Back away!”

The goblin tried to thrash in his grip, but Root had him tightly secured, even if he did have to hold back a wince when harsh reptilian scales dug into the flesh of his arm.

The rest of the goblins- five, six of them he counted- _did_ take the hint, and stopped generating fire, turning to look his way with newfound precaution. _Precautious goblins- now that was something you didn’t see everyday._  

Impossibly, things got worse.

“Do away with ‘im,” hissed one of the goblins, stepping forward. A large specimen, male, possibly middle aged and jacked up on illegal steroids. Eyeball and chest tattoos. Pierced tongue. Obviously another alpha of the pack. “We don’t need ‘im. I’m in charge now!” 

A crowd of the goblins cheered, but a good half started to look righteously affronted. Their attention as a whole diverted from Root and his hostage to each other. There was a lot of arguing and shoving. The civilians doubled back. Someone conjured a fireball.

The sharp trill of sirens pierced the air then, cutting through the vocals of the sweating masses. People shuffled over to the pavements, finally drawing away from the spectacle. Mothers tucked babies under their chins. The goblins turned on the defensive, prepared to hollow their throats out with fire and burn down the rest of the street. The black fireproof uniforms of a heavily armed LEP response team blurred out of the distance.

Root mentally ran through his extensive vocabulary of multilingual swears in search of a phrase that accurately described his feelings towards the rapidly escalating situation.

He finally settled on an old favourite.

“D’Arvit _._ ”

Immediately after, his hostage choked out the same thing.

* * *

 A long time ago, Admiral Cadmus Root had taught his sons several anecdotes he liked to call _heavy life lessons I learnt with age._ As the younger of his two sons traversed the aisles of the noisy Academy cafeteria, seeming to shrink more with every step, two of those special sayings kept coming back to him.

Don’t try to help when you’re not qualified to.

Never, ever become big news for the wrong reason.

But the whole _D’Arvitting_ Academy seemed to have only one thing on its shared, thick mind, namely Julius Root’s Involvement and Ruination of the Goblin Incident.

He didn’t take his usual spot today, because he usually sat with a group of elves who were very much like him, and wouldn’t let something like this be lived down. His constant companions? Sure, if you could call every other lunch break consistency. Friends, not by a long shot. Perhaps part of the problem and the reason no one seemed to be intent on defending his honour was that, two years into the Academy and making the ranks faster than anyone else, Root had exactly zero friends.

He grabbed a couple of ration bars and a sim-caf from the Do-It-Yourself counter, which was the least popular and least crowded effect of the mess hall, and opted for an isolated corner. The corner tables were usually reserved for the freshest of rookies, but everyone seemed to have forgotten their reservations and secretory culture today simply so they could all gossip about the Incident. It made him sick and his ears felt hot. The dressing-down he’d got from his chief instructor and his Academy blaster being confiscated following the Incident certainly hadn’t done favours to his complexion either.

Root slumped down at the table in the corner and tore at his ration bars like they were somehow to blame for this ordeal. Really, he wouldn’t even _be_ at mess if it wasn’t against the rules to take canteen food out in the corridors, and getting penalised for sneaking out food was the last thing he needed at the moment, even though nobody in the Academy saw sensation in _that_ particular crime.

“-absolutely ridiculous, can you believe that elf?”

“You can get like that when your head’s too full of praise and shit, if what I hear is true…”

“Fronddamn sons of-” Root muttered to himself, wondering at the same time if they weren’t all staring his way. Obnoxious and obnoxiously loud, the lot of them. Were these really the same people who’d run the LEP one day? 

“Anyway, the morons at Flight are claiming she can beat Ian Goldleaf’s record.”

“ _Their_ heads are definitely full of shit.” Uproarious laughter. “The Goldleaf score? A girlie? Given that they even let her _contest,_ that is-“

Root sat upright, ears perking. Not the table closest to him- they were actually talking about something _else._ Someone else. A she? A woman? Had any of these idiots even _seen_ a female before?

“Those elves at Flight definitely breathe too much moonlight. Nutters, the lot of them. You can imagine how pathetic they are on average if their top pilot is a girlie.” 

Maybe it had to do with his dour mood, but his brain took a while to draw the connection. And when it did, it hit him at full force. 

A _female_? A female at an _Academy?_

And it sounded suspiciously like said female was going to contest in the upcoming Air Force aptitude test, the death trap that every jock of his batch tried to set himself up to after a month’s worth of aboveground training at the LEP’s prestigious flight academy. Root was no stranger to the fact that any of these individuals with a month’s training wouldn’t be getting anywhere in the legendary annual race, and it was always flight academy students who won, but everyone knew what the Goldleaf score was. One of the LEP’s best and brightest at the time, some two hundred years ago, had finished the race in an unprecedented-and never seen again- timespan of one and a half minutes. Anyone who’d since tried to break the record had either failed spectacularly or died a fiery and violent death.

And here the prestigious aboveground center itself was claiming it had produced a student, and a female one at that, who was capable of doing better.

Root looked back down at the mug of murky, clumpy sim-caf in front of him.

_Something big is going to happen. I can’t say what, but it’s coming._

Curious. Elfin intuition was never wrong.


	2. Task Force Win-Win

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not going to comment on the Artemis Fowl movie trailer. I will admit that I did not particularly like it and I’m not very hopeful for this movie, but because we still haven’t seen it I’m going to try keeping an open mind about it.
> 
> Anyway, here’s the second chapter! I do not own Julius Root or related characters.

“We think you’re a viable candidate,” concluded Commander Xandes Evergreen, disinteredly looking up from his paperwork for the first time. “Your scores on the simulations are up to standard, and you’ve completed more than the minimum academy curriculum required for this position. What do you say?”

Root could scarcely believe his ears. He had listened keeping dutifully silent, posture stiffening with every new sentence that came out his chief training officer’s mouth.

“I don’t think this is my area, Commander.”

Xandes looked up at him with sharp, trained eyes over gold-rimmed glasses that would’ve got made fun of on any other elf. “ _You_ don’t think this is your area, cadet?”

Root internally cursed his lack of phrasing finesse. “The Board is right, of course, sir. I do pass the necessary requirements. But if I may offer a personal opinion, sir?”

“Go on.” Evergreen sounded dangerously calm.

Root swallowed the lump in his throat and thought, _D’Arvit,_ and forged ahead. “I don’t believe that the skillset of competitive piloting will match the primary courses on my graduation certificate.”

The Commander stared him down for a couple of uncomfortable seconds before he dropped his shoulders and drew out a long, disappointed sigh.

“If you want to go places,” he pointed a thick, pudgy ink pen Root’s way. “Learn to speak your mind. What is the real reason you don’t want this opportunity, that so many struggle to have for themselves?”

_Because this program is stupid. It’s for people like Turnball and other morons who think they stand a chance against properly trained flight students, and for a different class of idiots who just want to spend two months Aboveground to suck up the air. I have no place either way._

What he ended up carelessly blurting was, “I don’t want to do it. Sir.”

“That’s better,” said Evergreen, leaning back in his seat. The seat was worn and flexible, and it made Root’s own feet twitch with the effort of holding himself in a rigid stance reflecting respect for almost half an hour. “You don’t want to do it- but I’m going to tell you now why I think you should.”

He gestured to the empty guest’s seat beside which the student stood ramrod straight. “Sit down. I can see your feet getting tired.”

While his knees almost buckled with relief, his face turned red with embarrassment, but he grunted a thanks and sat himself gingerly down. The Commander fixed him with a stern look.

“You have big aspirations, cadet. I see that much from your test scores. Tell me, which branch of the LEP do you hope to serve?”

“Recon,” said Root without hesitation, because this was the one thing he was a hundred percent certain of.

Xandes nodded in approval. “You have the numbers for it. You’ll get in. I’m sure you’ve thought of what happens afterwards, as well.”

 _Afterwards._ Yes, he had; he’d thought it many times, made it his life’s ambition. But it was a sacred, secret part of himself that he didn’t, and never would, disclose to anyone. He was by no means the only elf in the Academy who wanted to become the head of LEPrecon, but voicing the dream out loud would spell animosity, would bring judgement his way. Might even jinx what chances he had.

Root’s throat was tight as he answered as evenly as possible. “Of course, sir. We all hope to advance in our careers.”

“And most people don’t advance beyond a certain point.” Xandes picked his pen up again, something he seemed to do whenever he had to get a message effectively across. And, for some reason, strange tactic worked. “Because they get sloppy. Because there are better people to choose from. Or because-“

Xandes pushed one of the many papers on his desk forward, sliding it into Root’s line of vision. It was part of a thick folder, laminated, with the Academy and the fairy Council’s seals of approval.

In a corner was an aged photograph of a younger Xandes Evergreen, followed by a long list of eligibility criteria and corresponding signatures of proof.

And Root understood. It hit him like a punch to the gut.

“Sometimes LEP officers hit a glass ceiling,” Xandes said in a lower voice, “Because they have one less signature on their certificates than their competition.”

Root stared, startled and dumbfounded, at the Gnommish text before him. One of the last listed items on Evergreen’s certificate was, indeed, the Flight Academy optional training program.

He only had two years left in the Academy. Only a few more chances to add to his certificate, and he’d nearly blown one.

“I understand, sir.” Root looked up from the yellowing board of paper. “How do I sign up?”

* * *

 

The average fairy got to visit the surface less than two times in two decades. Tourism was allowed but restricted and accommodated only a set number at a time, at set venues dictated safe by the Council. Surface visas were hard to come by and spent at least a year in processing; so it was far easier, if far less satisfying, for the People to visit their own civilisation’s shallower regions closer to the surface than the above the ground itself.

The average fairy did not believe the concept of the LEP Flight Academy, and theorised that the building’s very existence was a hoax. It was, after all, a massive proportion of land above the Earth’s crust with its own spacious airfield, airspace and radio control towers. Unbelievable. Most were convinced that the prestigious Flight Academy was actually just a shed with a couple of dented practice shuttles in one of the lesser-known shallow regions.

In reality, the Flight Academy premises looked just as unbelievable as the stories made them sound.

“The shield gate, as you can see, is made of fortified diamond-alloy, which is just about the strongest reflective material ever produced by fairykind,” the squat attendant/tour guide gnome was explaining as he directed their gazes outside the shuttle windows. “So to anybody looking from an angle different to this, it’s almost as if there were no gate.”

The shuttle circled around, making for a gate that opened to a far-too snug looking size to admit it in. The entrance was swift, unfelt, and the sound of an energy field buzzed in their ears before the pilot received some garbled instructions over the radio and the shuttle trembled slightly in the wake of the gate closing behind them.

All of them, himself included, had their faces pressed to the windows as they gaped in befuddlement and awe. Root didn’t care how childish he or his colleagues had to look right now; they were witnessing mythology before their eyes.

The building was vast, stretching over a greater plane of green land than Root had ever seen, a collection of large dwellings with flat roofs wide enough to accommodate various models of aircraft, and several black landing strips stretched across the back. It didn’t _feel_ like they’d just entered an enclosed space through a gate; this space was great, unending, and stretched as far as his eyes could make out. The sky above it was bright and clear and equally endless- it felt like the building belonged here, like it _owned_ this land on the surface of the world.

It felt like the surface was theirs again.

“Flight Academy is the single biggest fairy dwelling located above the surface,” their guide said, somehow managing to wheedle his voice back into their awestruck minds. “It covers an area of eight hundred acres and an airspace completely free from, and safe from, human intervention. This is all thanks to the time-stop and solar shield running over it, which is another groundbreaking accordance of fairy technology. The time-stop is a temporary fixture only put into place on occasions where the solar shield weakens, which is not very common. The shield is the most revolutionary of our innovations since the days of Frond, and there are experts who believe that it is the key to fairies populating the surface once more. We have accomplished the impossible here with this building- why not seek out another land like this and accomplish it again, but for everyone? For every fairy to have the chance to enjoy a safe visit to the surface, and to make themselves a home where they long for it…”

Root exhaled heavily against the glass. This was what he’d almost missed.

Beside him, kneeling on his seat for a better view, Cudgeon squeezed his hand tightly.

The unspoken words were clear: they were going to enjoy this.

 

Walking through the corridors of their partner Academy during their initiation tour, Root couldn’t help but wonder at how different their respective budgets had to be. There was no way this was all Council money; surely Flight had to do a lot of its sponsoring on its own, and that meant it had to have students with wealth. 

Everything was state-of-the-art. Everything made his skin itch with unease and questions and doubt, because this was not his environment.

But his colleagues seemed to be soaking it all up, drooling over everything new and shiny that they came across. Even Cudgeon was positively buzzing with excitement that he barely held in check, and the lot of them even got chummy with the students that walked smartly up and down the broad white corridors.

When the tour pointed them in the direction of the great outdoors, though, even Root couldn’t feel dour. The air was too fresh, too clean and breathable for that. For the first time in his life he understood what the phrase ‘getting drunk of surface air’ actually meant, and he decided it was a problem he was more than willing to put up with. 

He could handle six months of this. Six months of the freshest air he’d ever breathed, and the most beauty he’d ever seen in one place. Inside the building didn’t feel like home- but the surface, the blessed _surface_ , took his breath away with every step, and he couldn’t quite believe this was going to be his life for the next six months.

They were eventually shown into three rooms with double bunks that would be theirs for the duration of their stay. Root followed Cudgeon into the one he claimed, resolutely ignoring his brother’s eyes at the back of his neck. Turnball could be as prissy as he wanted about his little brother being offered this opportunity that he and so many others had tried hard to get, but if Root knew one thing, it was that just this once, he wasn’t competing with Turnball for anything. He’d taken his chance because of its value, not because he had an inflated ego that allowed him to believe he could win the race. 

Once inside, Cudgeon switched on the lights and grinned appreciatively at the look of their quarters. It wasn’t much- two single bunks, one over the other, two shelf spaces and a desk- but it was far better than they had in their academy, which was tight-pressed for space. 

“I like this trip too much already,” he commented, climbing up and claiming the top bunk as his own. “Great place, I’m a little fucking jealous, but great place, yeah?”

Root sat himself down in the chair, leaning back against the desk. “It’s...incredible,” he agreed, thinking more about the open field than the facilities themselves. “How they managed to hide this from the Mud Men, I have no idea.” 

“Solar shield, warlock magic, some voodoo witchcraft,” Cudgeon chuckled, sitting up. “What does it matter? There are fairies who’d kill to be us right now.” 

Root smiled wryly. “The price to pay being, of course, the death race at the end of the six months.”

“ _Death race.”_  Cudgeon snickered. “Come on, Julius, liven up. You really think we don’t have a chance? Look at these prim and proper rich kids. They may have more training, but they sure as hell don’t have the same grit.”

 _Explain ‘grit’,_ Root wanted to say, but didn’t. “Don’t know about that, Briar. They seem to have a lot of discipline.”  

“Oh, bucketloads.” His friend snorted. “Look, all I’m saying is that we have a real chance. Our Academy sent the best of their best, after all. Would be a shame if we don’t place. If you’re a good roommate I might even let you come second.” 

“Hilarious,” remarked Root, even as the corner of his mouth ticked up just a fraction.

Cudgeon pulled off his boots, dropping them over the foot of his bunk and messily onto the floor, before tearing off his jacket and other accessories and turning over in the mattress. 

“It’s been a tiring day,” he explained, getting settled in. “Nighty night, Julius.” 

“It’s still evening,” Root pointed out. “You’ll have to wake up for the night meal.”

Briar grunted, burrowing himself more firmly in the thin sheets. “Be a good roommate and smuggle some food in here for me.”

Root sighed, deep and exasperated. This was a common song and dance for them, and if he was being absolutely honest with himself, one of the few things under the Earth that he enjoyed. “Why do I have to be stuck with you?”

“Turnball is your other option.”

“Right. I forgot.” 

He couldn’t be angry with Turnball or anything else, though, not today. Clean air had filled and retained in his lungs, and today was the first time he witnessed a real sunset, through the impractical clear windows that the Academy had thoughtfully left their room.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> True story: reviews motivate this writer to Get Stuff WrittenTM


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